Want to create brilliant ideas? Go away.

Imagine living in a place where nothing exists except for what immediately surrounds you.

Your property is on a dirt road, with neighbors pockmarked every half-mile or so.  In winter, you have to plow yourself out or dig in for the long haul.

When you drive up the dirt road to your house and step out of your car, the silence is deafening.  The stones at your feet crunch like someone’s eating potato chips in your ears. The constant hum of nothing rushes into your ears like a backdraft, but you soon adjust to the peace and breathe in unaffected, unpolluted, unbelievable air.

Your dogs have the run of acres of the land.  Your garden produces a bounty of fresh rhubarb and strawberries and other good stuff.  “Your lake,” while open to others, is a short hike away and as beautiful and secluded a place as there is on Earth.

I stayed at a place like that over the weekend, in Southern Vermont. 

It was heaven.

And it was a great place to let my thoughts ramble and do a little extracurricular cranial sightseeing, landing in places that they ordinarily might not ever get to.

As you read this, you may be in your office or in transit, eating or drinking, surveying and surfing.  Wherever you are, you’re likely surrounded by people and machines and lots of artificial things that make noises and smells.  

There’s an energy to it that’s infectious.  It’s what keeps us going.

So for a few minutes, stop.

Get yourself to a place where those things don’t exist.  I bet it isn’t that far. 

Get out of town, or stay local.  Find a nook or cranny in your house or apartment or office or neighborhood where you can be assaulted by silence.  I bet you can find it.  Bring a pad of paper and something with which you can write or draw. 

See what happens to your mind and body when everything slows down. Watch how creativity creeps up from behind and smoothes into your lap.

If you can’t get to Southern Vermont, find your version of it. Surround yourself with nothing but potential ideas. 

It may not sound deafeningly silent, but it'll still sound pretty good.

Can a monologue can stop a bullet?

Depends on how you look at the world.

You can take the cynical stance and point out how ineffective Tony was, fancy feet aside, in preventing the Jets and Sharks from rumbling.  Riff and Bernardo are living proof. Well, not living, really, but you get the point.

Or, you could side with Hallie Gordon, who’s partnering with great organizations like Facing History And Ourselves and Steppenwolf Theatre, mounting an uphill battle to use the arts to help stop the killings of young Chicagoans.  It’s called “Now is the Time,” and it sends artists into gang-plagued Chicago public schools to at least try to start stemming the violence. 

You can say it’s a preposterous goal filled with ignorant ambition, given the extremely deep-rooted challenges facing many of the people involved in the cycles of violence.  As Chris Jones wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “…isn't some artistic response to this crisis going to be marginal at best…?”

Or, you could believe in the kind of effect that Now is the Time hopes to bring to troubled neighborhoods in need of radical change. While accomplishing that isn’t as easy as bringing in actors or dancers, it’s a different way of thinking.   And changing actions starts with changing thinking.

If nothing else, as Chris Jones also points out, anytime kids are involved in artistic pursuits, they’re off the streets and out of danger.  So for those few minutes, you could say the arts is actively fighting gangs and crimes.

You never know how someone could be affected by one monologue or one plie’ or one aria.  It could stop one bullet. 

It’s worth a try.  

Michael Jordan, Gene Kranz, and harnessing the power of optimism to create success

Last year at Chicago Ideas Week, I hosted a panel titled “Is this economy killing creativity or inspiring it?”  Five panelists discussed the challenges of staying fiercely creative in a less-than-encouraging economic climate.  They all agreed on one thing:

When life gives you lemons, creative people make limoncello.

It’s important to know that these weren’t all super-creative, off-the-charts right brainers.  Along with the owner of an amazing home and garden store (Sprout Home), a clothes designer, and an online entrpreneur, we also had the President of a superhot Chicago ad agency (commonground) and a senior marketing manager for a large packaged goods brand.

I was inspired by their optimism and conviction to take on the challenge of overcoming obstacles, regardless of the climate.  It reminded me of one of my favorite Michael Jordan quotes:

“If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

I flashed back to that panel when I read an article in yesterday’s Sunday Chicago Tribune about young adults who have graduated college and instead of facing the promise of a great future as in previous generations, are facing enormous obstacles. 

It spoke of “…a historic recalibration among expectations of every generation of Americans” and  continued, “As Europeans are being gripped by dream-crushing austerity, hopes are also being downsized here in ways not seen since the Great Depression…”

Wow.

Wowzer wow wow.  A historic recalibration?  Dream-crushing austerity?

How would that make you feel if you were sending a child to college in the Fall?  Knowing you’re about to spend thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare her for…shredded dreams and crushing austerity?

Well, that would be me, and since I’ve written a post about why I believe college is still worth every penny, I can think of no better person than Apollo 13’s Mission Control Director Gene Kranz to answer the question.  One of the most memorable moments in film.

I think Mr. Kranz would agree with our panelists, and with Michael Jordan, and with anyone in this country and in this world who would argue that there’s always a creative answer for any situation, challenge, or hardship. It starts with enthusiasm and belief.  And above all, a fervent, almost blindless optimism.

And when you get around that wall, a nice cold of limoncello will be waiting on the other side.

18 month olds are deciding your digital future.

The other day, a friend of mine and her son were leaving their house but the son wouldn’t walk out the door because he had misplaced his phone.  Like you and me, he couldn’t imagine going anywhere without his iphone.

He’s four years old.

It wasn’t a working iphone; it was a deactivated phone that his mom wasn’t using anymore.   You know, the old kind that couldn't tell you how to get to Buffalo Wild Wings; you had to type it in manually.  But it worked just fine for pretend conversations. 

And his ipad works just fine too.  A real one.

That four-year-old is part of the generation-to-be-named-later that’s come after the digital natives.  He and his iphone-holding, ipad-swiping, Nook and Kindle-reading buddies, who the New York Times suggests calling touchsceen natives. Call them what you want, but call them powerful; at ages from six months to three or four years, they’re deciding their generation’s digital future.  Here’s how.

You can tsk-tsk and shake your head at the use of digital products by babies who can’t yet walk or talk, but you can’t stop their continued exploration and use of digital products.  Just try to learn from them and maybe even join them.    

And when the next uber-cool digital product comes out, you can join the latest tech adopters, and do what they do:  drool all over it.

You don't need a business plan. You need a mental plan.

Left brained people, you might want to take some Advil or Pepto-Bismol before reading the next sentence.

 “I like doing things without having complete reasoning behind it,” he says, sounding unlike just about any other businessman on the planet. “The reasoning comes later.”

Do you know who said it?  You’re right if you think it’s one of them internet entrepreneurs.  Which one?  Here’s a hint:  The community that surrounds his brand creates the ideas for every one of their products and decides on which ones get produced.  More on that in a bit.

There’s a lot that’s interesting about that statement. 

“I like doing things without having complete reasoning behind it,” he says.  Maybe not complete, but my guess is, he’s got plenty of reasoning behind it.  Being a right brainer, he’s done a lot of the pre-thinking thinking without even knowing it, collecting thoughts and ideas as he walks down the street, rides his bike, watches videos and movies, and lives his life.  He may not admit to having a complete and total plan but it’s all up there.  

“…sounding unlike just about any other businessman on the planet.”  Hmmm.  Have you been to 1871, the incredibly cool tech incubator on the 12^th floor of the Merchandise Mart?  Have you heard of that Zuckerberg guy and/or seen the Social Network?  

For every businessperson on our planet with a business plan laid out, there’s another one with a loosely formulated collection of thoughts rolling around in her head that paint a picture what the future of her business may look like. The startup folks at 1871 start with a great idea and a healthy combination of belief and passion and are constantly searching out new information.  But they’re also figuring it out as they go.


To quote my business bible, Re-Work: "Planning is Guessing."

“The reasoning comes later.” Or maybe it never comes at all. Maybe your faith in your idea leads you down an ever-changing path that you hold onto for dear life because you know there’s something phenomenal on the other side, and along the way, great things are sure to happen.. 

That’s what’s happened so far to Jake Nickell, the founder and owner of Threadless, the T-shirt company with over 2 million members, 400,000 designs submitted, and over $5 million awarded to artists who’ve designed shirts for Threadless (One of the designs is pictured above).

Oh, Jake’s made a few bucks on Threadless too.

Without having complete reasoning behind it.

So left and right brainers, collect your thoughts, roll them around in your head, and the plan will form, whether it’s completely thought through or not.  

Square pegs + round holes = Brilliant Ideas

I saw Moonrise Kingdom over the weekend.  LOVED IT. It’s a story about two intelligent, inventive, incorrigible young teenagers who fall in love, get torn apart, and ultimately wind up happy and together, told as only the wonderfully quirky Wes Anderson can tell it.

It’s a story about round pegs in square holes.  Which probably describes most creative thinkers. 

Watching Moonrise Kingdom reminded me of one of the greatest TV commercials of all time.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Of course, it was for a company owned and created by one of the most distinctive, visionary square pegs ever (See a cool version of the commercial narrated by Steve Jobs, not Richard Dreyfus).

Hopefully, you see a little of yourself in one of those dreamers.  All it takes is just a little bit of crazy to do something great and wind up happy, just like in a Wes Anderson movie.

Go see Moonrise Kingdom.  Get inspired to be the square peg.